The Desert and San Pedro...

The bus trip to San Pedro was possibly the worst of my life, but tragically was all self inflicited due to the night before. Theres nothing like 3 hours sleep, a banging (vomity) hangover, 22 hours on a bus and an endless supply of dubbed films, crap sandwiches (lunch and dinner) and heavy snorers.

Eventually however the hangover wore off as we climbed to 2800 m above sea level to the deserty town of San Pedro. The town soley functions as an aid to visit the many natural attractions around the town, Lagoons, Glaciers, Valleys, Salt lakes, Flamigos, etc. It is totally isolated, a truck comes to the town once a week with fresh fruit and veg, theres no real supermarkets or shops, but its damn cute. Me and Bethany stayed in a hostel on the outskirts of the town, which was basically in the dessert, and was pretty much an elderly couples home, with extra rooms which functioned as dorms. My initial reaction on walking into the cemented shack was ´what the fuck...´being greeted by the handless grandfather, but by the end of it I just wanted to pick the pair up and take them home. That, plus the place was filled with cats, always a plus in my book.

After spending hours on the bus we were eager to do something the first day, so that afternoon visited the Valley de Luna (Valley of the Moon). We climbed through caves, over hills and eventually to the valley where we climbed up a huge sand dune to watch the sunset. It was beautiful, and the perfect moment for my cameras battery to choose to die... bummer.

So, the thing about going to a high alltitude place after being in low alltitude, for most of your life, is that some people suffer from alltitude sickness. They say to take it easy the first day, not do too much, eat little and don´t drink alcohol. I chose to ignore all of these, and we went for a 3 course meal (there was an offer, only 6000 pesos!) and a pisco sours. During dessert I start to feel a bit weird, then dizzy, and I know I´m going to faint. I tell Bethany I feel a bit weird and am going to the bathroom... I made it about five steps before fainting in front of the whole restaurant, banging my head on some poor couples table on the way down. I was fine of course, just embarassed. Bethany and the charismatic waiter came to my aid, I choose to sit where I was until I felt better. He told me it happens all the time, not to worry, then scolded me for drinking and eating steak my first day there. Five minutes later a girl wobbles past being aided by her two friends... At least I wasn´t alone, and to be honest, I got off light, later I found out alttitude sickness can get alot worse.

For the next two days I took it fairly easy,a bit of dizziness and one hallucination during a seista and I was fine. We arranged to do a three day 4X4 tour into Bolivia to see endless lagoons, flamigos and saltflats so there was no major need to do too many tours around San Pedro, just chilled in a small town where after 3 days, locals knew me by name and called me over to chat when walking down the main street. Just like home!